‘I must go and toll the bell. The procession will be coming out of church directly. You know that quite well.’ At this moment the voices in the church rose yet more loudly, and a sound of steps could be distinctly heard. ‘No! no!’ insisted Desirée, dragging La Teuse towards the stable. ‘Just come and look at her, and tell me what ought to be done.’ La Teuse shrugged her shoulders. All that the cow wanted was to be left alone and not bothered. Then she set off towards the vestry, but, as she passed the shed, she raised a fresh cry: ‘There! there!’ she shrieked, shaking her fist. ‘Ah! the little wretch!’ Matthew was lying at full length on his back, with his feet in the air, under the shed, waiting to be singed.* The gash which the knife had made in his neck was still quite fresh, and was beaded with drops of blood. And a little white hen was very delicately picking off these drops of blood one by one. * In some parts of France pigs, when killed, are singed, not scalded, as is, I think, the usual practice in England.--ED. ‘Why, of course,’ quietly remarked Desirée, ‘she’s regaling herself.’ And the girl stooped and patted the pig’s plump belly, saying: ‘Eh! my fat fellow, you have stolen their food too often to grudge them a wee bit of your neck now!’ La Teuse hastily doffed her apron and threw it round Matthew’s neck. Then she hurried away and disappeared within the church. The great door had just creaked on its rusty hinges, and a burst of chanting rose in the open air amidst the quiet sunshine. Suddenly the bell began to toll with slow and regular strokes. Desirée, who had remained kneeling beside the pig patting his belly, raised her head to listen, while still continuing to smile. When she saw that she was alone, having glanced cautiously around, she glided away into the cow’s stable and closed the door behind her. The little iron gate of the graveyard, which had been opened quite wide to let the body pass, hung against the wall, half torn from its hinges. The sunshine slept upon the herbage of the empty expanse, into which the funeral procession passed, chanting the last verse of the _Miserere_. Then silence fell. ‘_Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine_,’ resumed Abbé Mouret, in solemn tones. ‘_Et lux perpetua luceat ei_,’ Brother Archangias bellowed.